


The Bridge

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Extreme AU, Fuck Buddies to Lovers, M/M, Multi, PWP, bad language, elements of BDSM, filthy sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:09:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5055211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That weird au where Rick isn't shot in the pilot episode, but goes through the epidemic at ground zero, and comes across Daryl someplace different</p><p>//A weight smashes into him, a blur of movement and dirty leather.</p><p>Rick reels backward, knocked clean onto his ass. His wrist almost snaps when a boot stomps onto his gun-hand.  Suddenly nerveless, the colt skitters out of his grip. </p><p>Rick bites back a howl of agony.  He pulls his hand close and kicks out with both heels. The walker flies off him. It hits the cell wall and comes back again, quick as a nightmare.   Rick scrabbles away and it’s only then that *not* a walker registers - the second ‘body’ in the cell is alive and very much pissed off - then a fist crashes into Rick’s jawbone and it’s on. </p><p>Desperate to escape, the stranger scrambles over the top of him bodily, heading for the door. //</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bridge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ampkiss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ampkiss/gifts).



> So…long ago in the dark ages I posted a request for prompts on my tumblr. Ampkiss was kind enough to provide me with one, which was promptly ignored when shit happened and life interfered. So, ten months overdue, and with sincere apologies to ampkiss for taking so long, here's a fic

 

****

 

 

Shane isn’t a quiet sleeper. His breath rasps inside his chest, sub-vocalisations that cycle through REM.  He’ll kick out, twist about.  His legs free-wheel like Lance Armstrong - riding the home-stretch of Tour de France - sleep, Rick thinks, is the parting curtain for Shane. 

It’s the only glimpse of vulnerability Rick gets because when awake, Shane’s thirteen miles of rough road with a foul tongue.

Rick stirs at the first crack of dawn, exhausted from the nightly cycling.  He wipes a forearm over his face and shakes his partner awake. “Hey, c’mon now, you’ve won that race.”

And for all his midnight antics, his restless dreams, Shane awakens easily, groping at the space between them.  “Rick?”

“Here.” His hand shifts, a casual stretch toward reassurance. The patrol car is crammed full – every weapon they could find from King’s County shoved into the rear. The passenger seat is laid flat, the best position for sleeping in and the air inside has gone stale overnight. The doors are locked. Windows sealed up tight. On a strip of dusty highway, Rick shakes his partner to alertness – “We’ve company,” he warns – and watches Shane jerk upright. 

In the rear view mirror, a dark line blurs in the morning haze, the distant rumble of vehicles fast approaching. 

“Jesus,” Shane breathes out, and cranes his head around: “Where you think they’re headed?”

“Evacuation centre or a base,” Rick ventures, watching the mirror: “Fort Benning, maybe?”

The convoy doesn’t stop.  It doesn’t even slow down, jeep after truck after Humvee, a smear of pale faces glimpsed out of the back of a transport vehicle as they hurtle by.

They sit still and watch it go. 

Shane has a white-knuckled grip on his shot-gun. He wipes his other hand over the back of his neck, an old tell, a nervous habit he’s never broken. When things went sour, K.C.S.D had orders to throw their lot in with FEMA, maintain order against the flash riots plaguing America – a hold-the-line mentality before society went to hell in a hand-basket – some of the guys at the station ran – shirked their duties and packed their families into vehicles – strung their numbers out too thin, but Rick couldn’t ignore the job when there was still an authority to answer to and Shane wouldn’t budge so long as Rick was being mule-headed about it.

They had orders to follow the chain of police command - then they had orders to provide any support necessary to FEMA - and _then_ they had orders to obey the instructions of the National Guard; some time after that, they stopped listening to orders. When the rifles turned on _living_ civilians Rick wasn’t inclined to obey the uppity-ups and he sure as hell didn’t trust the military.

Shane (who stayed with Rick when most of the department ran, who ignored his own judgement)  - would look at him sometimes with wary disbelief.  _You hung around for this, man? Jesus, we could have been in the hills by now._

They watch the last Humvee roar by.  The gunner turns a black M2HB-QCB to track them, the barrel long as a yardstick, _Ma Deuce_ written lovingly on the side.  The gunner’s face is hidden behind wraparound sunglasses, chequered scarf pulled loose around his neck.  He mimes squeezing the trigger with his index finger. 

In return, Shane flips the bird.  “Asshole.”

Rick turns the key over in the ignition.  “Bosun County’s close by.  We’ll swing by, check in there.” 

Shane squirms in his seat.  “Ain’t nobody in charge.  The world’s a shambles, and buddy, it’s better to lay with the wolves than keep searching.  Military experience and heavy artillery isn’t something to sniff at. We could follow them.”

“King’s County fell,” Rick says sharply.  Each word whistles between clenched teeth, ominous as a bomb. His hand doesn’t shake on the steering wheel and he won’t look at the convoy.  Rick can feel the flash-fire of betrayal crawl over his nape, and he can’t forgive the national guard for opening fire on a working hospital, not when all those people were in there, Leon included.

There’s a hair-line fracture between having enough numbers to protect a group; and being small enough in those same numbers to _sustain_ a group. The convoy didn’t look set to invite in strangers, their accounting books are full. Rick jerks the car around angrily.  “ _Screw_ the army.”

In Bosun County they siphon off gas from an abandoned Buick. Shane guards the perimeter as Rick sucks and spits, a rubber hose clamped between his teeth.

In the first haze of sunshine Rick thinks he ought to apologise to Shane for shutting him down so quickly, but he can’t find the energy for it. People still band together, they have to - somewhere they have to - and Rick can still choose whom to align with. There are still choices to be made. But Shane might have left Kings County earlier if it weren’t for Rick’s sense of obligation.  Shane could be someplace safe, holed up in the hills with a bunch of civilians, or fishing for frogs, and that’s something Rick can’t dismiss out-of-hand.  “There’s a Sherriff’s office here.  Might be supplies. Guns.  Spare ammo.  Food.” He rubs the sweat off his forehead, the brim of his hat knocked askew, and fixes Shane with an apologetic look. “We might find people.”

“Yeah,” Shane agrees.  He raises the rifle and sights down the line of his weapon, eye to the scope. At the far end of the street, a walker trips into view.  “Might be all kind of surprises.”  He fires, almost carelessly.  The retort echoes in the empty town.  Shane lowers the weapon, muzzle pointed toward the earth, and struts toward the Sheriff’s Department; from the back, his frame is a perfect, powerful, V. Shane’s done away with the uniform, opting for heavy duty clothing instead, material that’s designed to last. Over his left shoulder, he calls: “Let’s go, brother; waste not want not.”   

The walker Shane shot is too far away to determine gender. Ammunition is a concern; namely, their dwindling supply of it.  “Yeah,” Rick echoes slowly, staring into the distance where the body’s sprawled in the open sun.  “So you say.”

 

 

***

 

They enter through the rear door. 

The basic layout of the police station is a reversal of King’s County, and they steal through the corridors with confidence. The weapons room, when they find it, is swept bare.  Every prayer Rick uttered - every silent bargain he struck with god - gone unanswered: the rifle rack stands empty, not a single cartridge to be spotted, there’s not even a discarded shell lolling on the floor.  The neat row of taser’s in their two by two pigeon-holes are plundered.

Shane kicks the wall hard, cracking the plaster. “Fucking great,” he quips. “Awesome decision, coming here. Man, we _should_ have hitched up with the convoy.”

Rick spares the room a glance.  He thinks about Shane’s growing frustration, and wonders if he’s keeping count, ticking off all the decisions Rick’s made that haven’t panned out. Most of all, Rick recalls the easy way Shane had reached for him in the morning; how despite it all, he had _stayed_. Disappointed, Rick turns on his heel.  He finds the evidence room three doors down, opposite the gents.  Rick slams his shoulder against the plywood, again, and again, until the wood on the doorjamb splinters.  He staggers under the sudden give, knees folding until he catches himself on the doorhandle.

The evidence room’s a cluttered mess - old cases and new trials pending - like King’s County it hasn’t been reorganised in years.

He finds three kilos of amphetamines bagged and tagged, and further down the line, a 9mm Uzi lying on its side, a half clip of ammunition in a separate bag pushed almost out of sight.  “Eureka,” he breathes out, and takes it all back, every silent curse he hurled at his maker.  

It’s the small things, the little inconsequential’s, that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Rick tears the plastic bag apart with his teeth – _M.Kurral’s murder trial, 07/08/2010_ dated on one side – and reassembles the weapon.  He double-checks the safety, then scrutinizes the rest of the shelving, searching for more.  More murder weapons.  More confiscated goods. More of anything, absolutely _anything_ they can use.

From behind, Shane says: “Can you believe this shit?” The brief spat of anger he exhibited has gone.  Shane surveys the collected evidence with a grin, then pulls down a crossbow, stashed on the uppermost shelf, and hefts the weight.  “You want to go Robin Hood on these freaks?”

“My cousin used to hunt with a crossbow,” Rick offers idly. There are scratches on the limb and stock but the cam is oiled smooth, the string and cable taut as a piano wire, the paint on the trigger-guard’s worn clean.  It’s a working weapon, Rick notes, well used, but there’s no evidence tag, no indication of who it belonged to or what case it involved, no date as to when it was filed into the evidence room of Bosun county. Instead, it’s tossed haphazardly onto the shelf.  Discarded. Rick examines it briefly.   “They’re not as easy as they appear.”

Shane snorts, a brief glimmer of cockiness returning. “Trigger and aim, baby, not much different in my book.”  Shane shoulders the crossbow and hitches his thumb toward the ceiling, his face going sharp.  “Check upstairs?”

Weapons in the watch-house are unlikely but cops are notorious for stashing away food.  Rick pockets a bowie knife, the edge honed to razor sharpness, and swings the Uzi over his shoulder by the strap.  He draws his own weapon, favouring the colt in close confines and nods. “Yeah.  I think it’s best we do.”

 

 

 

Upstairs, the stink is pervasive.  Rick breathes through an open mouth, moving further into the gloom of the watch-house.  Stylistically, there aren’t many windows in a police station to throw out light, minimizing escape, and the electricity is long gone. The room is cast in blurred shadows, in violets and swelling bruises.  The building creaks and rumbles at their entry, as if resenting the disturbance.

“Creepy-crawlies are here,” Shane intones. 

He doesn’t say more.  Shane might shoot his mouth off when frustrated but he’s a firearms instructor first; he goes terse before the bullets start to fly.  Rick says simply.  “They’ll be in the cells.”

Shane grimaces.  “You wanna deal with them?  Because I ain’t.  It’s a waste of time.”

Rick could leave it be – Shane’s right, it’s not as if the walkers are going anywhere soon - but there’s a thrum of injustice stiffening his spine.  Rick wonders who ran this joint, if they qualified as human?  He wonders when the staff left, were the people incarcerated inside already dead?  Or if in the town’s haste to clear out they had been overlooked, were left to die of thirst or hunger?

“Yeah,” he decides, brittle.  “I’ll handle it.”  He pulls the bowie knife free, because Rick has no intention of wasting bullets and steps towards the cells. 

“You do that,” Shane adds, sotto voce.  His partner swings left, pulling out stationary drawers as he goes by.  He finds the master keys in the Sheriff’s desk and tosses them to Rick.  “Have fun, y’all.”

Rick snatches the ring mid-air.  Shane makes a beeline for the kitchen, leaving him to it, and Rick heads in the opposite direction.  At the end of a thin corridor awaits four cells. The facility’s larger than King’s county, which held a maximum of two cells - a drunk tank and a holding facility for more serious offences - Bosun has a bigger county court, serving the nearby towns as well as its own, and the larger cell capacity reflects it.  “Hullo?” Rick calls, hesitantly.  “An’body here?”

A walker clangs against the steel bars, mashing its face against metal. 

Its hands, clawed, grope for Rick’s sleeve, it’s eye popping from the force of the impact.  Rick jerks, startled.  It takes him a moment to build up to it, to look the walker in the face and wonder who he was, to remind himself he had been known once, was human, had a life, a file, a wife maybe, that in the end he was a person who deserved better than this end, and then Rick sinks his blade into its skull, laying him to rest. He walks in the centre of the corridor as he moves down the line, heart skipping a treat.  Cell two lies empty, the door ajar. At the rear, cell three holds two walkers, male, snarling and reaching through the gaps in the bars. The floor’s damp from a dripping tap.

Rick pauses, frowning as he stares at the carnage of the fourth cell.

It looks like one hell of a fight took place. A body’s sprawled on the ground, half of its face caved in.  Maggots inch through its flesh in pale ringlets.  Bunk and mattress have been overturned. The tap has been torn off its mantle, the slow trickle of water the source of the pervading dampness. Another body, tucked further into the corner, is curled away onto its side.  Decomposition of the first corpse means Rick can’t tell if it turned or not _before_ being brained, and the second body is manoeuvred out of Rick’s direct viewing line.

He can’t get a clear look at the face.

Rick feels his lip curl. The features to the first corpse are mutilated but the uniform is as achingly familiar as Rick’s own. The keys jangle in his palm as he unlocks the cell, inching into the room to check the first body over. The holster is empty, the utility belt is stripped of equipment; cuffs, flashlight, penknife, and the extra ammo gone.  The star on its chest is black with encrusted blood.  Rick sits on his heels, stumped for a logical explanation, and studies the man’s nametag.  Deputy Trips.  “Okay…  Okay then. Rest i– “

A weight smashes into him, a blur of movement and dirty leather.

Rick reels backward, knocked clean onto his ass. His wrist almost snaps when a boot stomps onto his gun-hand.  Suddenly nerveless, the colt skitters out of his grip. 

Rick bites back a howl of agony.  He pulls his hand close and kicks out with both heels. The walker flies off him. It hits the cell wall, and comes back again, quick as a nightmare.   Rick scrabbles away and it’s only then that _not_ _a walker_ registers - the second ‘body’ in the cell is alive and very much pissed off - then a fist crashes into Rick’s jawbone and it’s on. 

Desperate to escape, the stranger scrambles over the top of him bodily, heading for the door.  

Rick lies flat.  He hooks one hand over a boot and trips the prisoner, letting the man topple face first onto the concrete.  Rick squirms, turning onto his stomach; he locks a hand in the man’s belt-loops and jerks him downward, tangling their legs together and rolling on top, torso to torso.  

They scrabble on the floor like schoolboys. Furious and eerily quiet.

The prisoner doesn’t pull his punches.  There’s a wild flurry to his movements, but however long he’s been in Bosun he’s half-starved because of it.  A rusty tap the only source of survival. Rick isn’t aiming to hurt, but it’s harder and harder not to when his opponent doesn’t care a whit. “Quit it!  Goddammit,” Rick spits, and then louder: “Will you quit it!” He’s kneed in the groin in response; dirty tactics and not giving a shit.  Wheezing, Rick’s inclined to just shoot the prick. “Sonofabitch!” he yelps.

He gets a decent arm lock.  Rick torques the elbow then wrenches it high, threatening to dislocate the shoulder. The man rolls with it, crazy flexible or beyond feeling pain, and Rick drops the hold when the man darts a punch toward his throat.  His vision spots. His trachea flexes inward with the impact and for one horrible, sustained moment, Rick can’t draw a single breath. Dirty blonde hair, narrow eyes, the man’s expression turns feral with triumph, it’s the first good look Rick has of him before the prisoner jerks his hips up.  Unseated, Rick topples forward, and in the newly created space between them the prisoner scoots out from below. He doesn’t try for the door this time; instead, he gropes for the discarded colt.  

Rick sees it too, makes a play for it – desperate to shout _don’t shoot_ \- but he’s voiceless, body half seized from the throat jab and too slow.  Angel wings, Rick thinks disjointedly, as he catches sight of the leather vest.  Who has the gall to wear angel wings? 

“Asshole,” the man rasps and points the gun straight at Rick’s face. His whole body is trembling - from adrenalin, starvation - from a seething anger that roils through his filthy frame. “ _You fucking assholes.”_

Unlike Shane, Rick’s never taken his uniform off, he thinks he won’t have time to regret the decision now; Rick’s own weapon is aimed squarely at him.   The man’s slumped on his knees, tightening his grip on the colt, like the other cop inside the prison cell – head bashed in until he was dead, dead, dead - Rick doesn’t think he’ll hesitate now. 

Calmly, Shane steps into the cell from behind, and cold-clocks the prisoner hard. 

On a hair-trigger, the colt goes off, a scream like a banshee as the bullet ricochets in the small space.  Shane throws himself clear.  Rick covers his head with both hands and presses his face against the wet floor.  His opponent, sprawled senseless, is slumped beside him, their fingertips almost touching. In appearance, he could stand on either side of Rick, there’s something indeterminate about his age, chest heaving, ribs prominent from the confinement.  He’s dirt stained, blood-stained, he had every intention of pulling the trigger. 

“So,” Shane says, when the bullet finally pings into silence. “I guess you found someone, huh?”

 

 

***

 

 

The first argument goes like this:

“We ain’t leaving him in the cell.  Period.”

“Are you listening to yourself?  In case you haven’t noticed, Rick, you have a daisy chain of bruises around your throat.  He meant to kill you.”

The fight feels distant now, recalled only in heated flashes. Rick knows Shane dragged him out of the cell by the shirt-collar.  He knows Shane slammed the door behind them both, cursing a blue streak. He knows the soft press of Shane’s fingertips, aligned on either side of Rick’s throat as he checked his breathing, the distinct smell of peppermint, stolen from someone’s bureau. “No,” Rick rasps. “He tried to get pass. I tripped him up on the way out, is all.”

Shane’s eyebrows can convey much, not the least of all is a healthy range of scepticism.  “And nearly landed on the body of _another_ dead cop. Or did you forget that part?”

“I haven’t forgotten.”  Irritated, Rick cuts his gaze upward.  “Gimme some of that.”

“You won’t like it; it’s nicotine,” Shane warns. Nevertheless he holds up a single piece of gum then waves it left to right like an asshole; Rick snatches it before the motion can blur his vision any.  Shane frowns.  “Found it in a Deputy’s desk, nicotine gum and a bar of Hershey’s, there’s some A-grade cuisine right here.  He clocked you a good one, huh, is that brain of yours swelling inside its faulty pan?” His touch is warm, sure of itself. Rick’s never been immune to Shane’s physicality.  How for all of his size and breadth Shane can slip into his personal space, take ownership of the lapses and gaps between them.  He cleans the blood from Rick’s face with an aching tenderness.

“Not as hard as the pistol-whipping you handed out.”

“The asshole’s not locked up because of his good looks.” Rick doesn’t react – he knows he doesn’t – but there’s something attentive, judgmental, about the quick look Shane throws, overly knowing.  There’s too much history between them to pretend ignorance, or to deny Rick _had_ noticed his looks, when the man was finally relaxed, sprawled out senseless on the wet floor. Shane lets his hand fall away, brushing against exposed collar-bones, the wet material of Rick’s still sodden shirt.  “He’s in there for a reason, you know.  Chances are he’s one of the looters you and I spent all our remaining time as police officers arresting. He’s a thief.  Or worse, a murderer.”

“Well, why don’t we ask him? ‘Sides, you said you wanted to hook up with more people.”

“Yeah…yeah, I surely did,” Shane concedes, reluctantly. “But to be honest, I preferred the army over the hillbilly hick.”

 

***

 

“I want me damn crossbow back.” - is how the second argument begins.

Gleefully as a two year old, Shane proclaims. “Nope.  No.  No, siree Bob, see, I rather think not.”

Balefully, the man slaps his palm against the prison bars. “You leave me in here again and I’ll kill you, swear to god, I’ll find a way out.”

“We weren’t the ones who did that.”  Rick’s been in the Sheriff’s department since high school, he’s heard every kind of threat levelled at him in a dozen languages besides, and they lost their power to intimidate long since.  Weary, he raps the cell bars with his knuckles. “But soon as I see you chew on steel, I’ll make a note to be worried.”

Like tapping on glass, the prisoner swings his attention to Rick.  He sways on his feet with a side to side motion, darts his tongue out to wet his bottom lip, gaze narrowed and cold as any serpent.  “This is unlawful, what ‘cha doing!”

“Yeah, well, there’s been a hiccup with society of late.” They can sit around and chat all day but counting the walker outside, two bullets have been fired on these premises in a short space of time; Rick’s instincts are jingling like a musical note. “Let’s keep it simple: I have three questions I’m going to ask, you _will_ answer them or I leave you to rot, without so much as a by your leave, are you following?”

“I’m listening.”

“Good.  How many walkers have you killed?”  Because so many people hadn’t or couldn’t in the early days, inertia, cowardice, a belief a cure would be discovered any day, or maybe it was the inability to separate a loved ones face from an assailant, a monster, a meat-suit.  So many people had been infected unnecessarily, too slow to react to their own imminent danger, and Rick needs to know if this is someone he can _rely_ on in the future or a liability.  “Two: who is he?” Rick jabs a finger at the body stinking up the cell, one of his brethren, and if Rick’s going to let the redneck out; he needs to know what sort of man he is releasing, how he reacts to people: “And finally: _why_?”

“I ain’t kidding about me cross-bow, I want it back, and I’ve killed every poxy-riddled freak I’ve met so far. Y’all Sheriff was a good ol’, boy…he thought they could be saved.” He smiles.  He has a small mouth, Rick notes, not built for a wide grin; his humour is a sickle blade of mirth, knowing he was imprisoned because of how he ended the dead, a disagreement in ideology.  “He’s had dealings with me family before; I guess he figured them walkers were worthwhile folks.”

“And the cop?”  Shane presses.

Unease crosses his features; he picks at the ragged nail on his thumb.  “You saw the name-tag – Deputy Trips or something – they put him in here before everyone cleared out and left.  Sick. Not bit.  He had a high fever, your kindly Sheriff lost some of his nerve at the end, wasn’t looking to nurse him better.”

Rick stirs; ready to leave the prisoner behind if he’s the sort of person who murders the ill - the _living_ ill – out of fear or spite.  Rick thinks he’d abandon anyone who attempted it, man or woman, whatever their intention. “So you murdered Deputy Trips?”

“Nah,” the prisoner steadies, his attention fixed on Rick. “The lawman turned on his own.”

“You said he wasn’t bit.”

“He wasn’t.  But I ain’t lying…he was a walker when he tried to chow down on me in the middle of the night.”    

"Doesn’t make any kind of sense," Shane protests.

Rick takes a step forward, pressed against the bars from torso to boots, trying to get a better read on his expression.  The prisoner leans against the opposite wall, arms folded, ankles crossed; indifferently, he let’s Rick stare all he wants. After a beat, Rick decides: “Okay.”

Shane shakes his head once but jangles the keys.  His tone goes conversational as he unbolts the cell.  “That’s Rick over there, the moral fibre of King’s County and a fine, upstanding citizen, I’m Shane.  You do anything stupid in the next few minutes and I’ll beat you, hick; afterwards, I’ll handcuff you wrist to ankle and beat you some more, just to be clear, that _is_ unlawful, and mightily deserved.”

Rick moves aside to make space in the small room, tense and ready for a reaction, the prisoner’s fists curl once at the threat and then he introduces himself.  “Daryl.” He looks Shane up and down, derisively.  “So you’re the cliché.”

Shane grins, predator wide.  “Try me some.”

“The crossbow’s yours,” Rick interrupts, and ignores the look of betrayal Shane levels at him.  “It’s quieter than our guns and I’d rather it be in the hands of someone who knows how to use it.”

“The knife’s mine, too,” Daryl growls.  He steps out of the cell, perpendicular to Rick’s position.  There’s nothing grateful in his demeanour, his tone is pure demand, face turned downward, hidden partially away.  “Give it.”

Rick’s seen dogs who attack from the edge, tails low and hackles high, they fly in from the side-lines in a streak of savagery. He doesn’t look at Shane when he pulls the buck knife loose from his belt, Rick taps the flat side of the blade against his own palm twice then hands it over.

Downstairs, the back door slams shut.  The building moans, a discordant note.

Rick tilts his head toward the sound of shuffling feet. “We ain’t having any more arguments in this moment, now, are we?”

“Nope,” Daryl agrees.

 

***

 

When they were thirteen they’d make a fort - or sometimes camp outside in Shane’s backyard - they’d sleep under the stars in rolled up bags and talk until first light glimmered.  When they were thirteen, Shane bragged about having sex with Kelly Gibbs – and when Rick covered his ears over and chanted _don’t wanna hear it, I don’t wanna hear it_ – Shane had laughed and spoken louder, lewder, in more reverent detail.  Shane always knew how to spin a yarn.

When they were thirteen Rick confessed to being a virgin ( _Big surprise there, bud_ ) and admitted he didn’t get what all the fuss what about - not when you could use your own two hands to get the same result.  Shane said it was better with people, with more limbs than your own, and Rick had rolled his eyes and called bullshit.  It all feels the same – it all felt the same.

_How would you know, huh?_

In hindsight, Rick doesn’t know if he was daring Shane, or if it were Shane who had manipulated the conversation – who set the topic, the events, in motion – there was a degree of meanness to it, especially when Rick saw Kelly the following morning, and felt the punch in his stomach like a two by four, shamed with sudden guilt.  Kelly smiled as she strolled by, Shane’s arm thrown carelessly over her shoulder.  “Hey there, Rick.“

“Hey.”

“It’s better with more people, Rick,” Shane had whispered in the night.  “It’s so much better.”

Rick had slept in a ratty pair of shorts, loose at the waistband and threadbare on the seat.  It was hot that night, and they were both sleeping on top of the covers, Shane had slithered his hand down until he was cupping the mound between Rick’s legs, scratching the denim idly, and Rick had flinched at the touch, a full body jump.  “I’ll show you.” Shane didn’t try to sweet-talk, he was matter-of-fact, the same way he spoke about fixing cars a - _this is how you do it -_ current to his voice and motions.  He pulled Rick’s shorts down, he threw one leg over Rick’s thighs to keep him pinned, and then he grabbed Rick’s cock like he was learning how to drive shift for the first time.  It _hurt_.  It was too dry.  Not enough slick, his skin caught on each rough drag. He was on the edge of razor torment, cussing and blinking tears.  His stomach coiled tight, like a nest of winter snakes.

He came violently, with a shout.  He smelled like sex and there was spunk on Rick’s stomach, on Shane’s thumb, thin strips of ropey white, and he couldn’t catch his breath, Rick’s chest was heaving like an asthmatic.  He felt vast as the stars above.  He felt voided, emptied out from the inside, growing cold too soon.  He was scrubbing at his eyes thinking maybe there really was such a thing as being too young when Shane smiled:  “There, not a virgin anymore.” Satisfied, Shane had restated:

 

 

****

 

“It’s better with more.” 

 

****

 

The walkers had surged through the back door. By the time they made it downstairs there was a decrepit flood of bodies stumbling their way. Rick kept one eye on Daryl, wary of the man going rabid on them, but the hunter fired off three arrows in quick succession, plugging up the corridor with the falling dead and giving Rick a clear indication of the type of man he had released.  Satisfied he wouldn’t wind up with a knife in his spine, Rick darted into the free zone, grabbing the filing cabinets stacked up like tall boys on either side of the corridor and overturned them, one by one, barricading the evidence room, the gents, and everything else that lay beyond it.

Rick pivoted, stepping to the left. 

He came face to face with an arrowhead, having stepped into Daryl’s direct eye-line as the man hung around and covered him. Daryl jerked the bow aside, not lowering it an inch but still aimed toward the filling corridor, and let off another shot, whistling close to Rick’s ear. 

Terse, Rick yelled.  “Follow Shane.”

Shane led the way to the front, the three of them making short work of the sporadic walkers who’d already wandered in.  No guns.  Just paper weights, letter openers, table legs, Daryl’s knife, crossbow and a ferocious dislike for anything moving.  They were good together, Rick noted, spilling out of the watch-house and legging it to the exit.  They were inexplicitly smooth, as if they’d run a thousand drills together –

\--Or as if Daryl took his cues from those around him, hyper-aware, and synching himself to movement.  Rick knows the type, he’s a fighter, bone for bone Daryl knew what it was like to be hit unexpectedly and had learned to guard against it.  He fits beside them, floods the undefended flanks, he wells up the blind spots quick as liquid water, and Rick catches Shane’s eye, sees the twitch of his sharp grin.

The front door was chained shut from the outside but Shane puts a chair through the window, the pane crashing down like cymbals, and then they were outside in the bright daylight of Bosun county.  Every walker in the street heard the window shatter and in the wide openness of the road Rick swings the Uzi up and lets it rip.

 

***

 

Shane dated Kelly Gibbs for three weeks – forever when you’re thirteen, or so he said – later, he told Rick all about Samantha James, while kissing the freckles on Rick’s chest, chewing on his nipples for hours with sharp teeth, until Rick came, untouched.  They were sensitive and swollen the next day; the rough drag of his school shirt prickled the nubs with every movement.  Rick’s body buzzed like a bee, remembering forcibly, until he walked around campus with a boner between his legs.  When he was fourteen, Shane described in detail about sinking inside the moist heat of Veronica Hill, and he had played with the come leaking out of Rick’s ass with sticky fingers.  “I’m gonna pierce these one day,” Shane murmured.

He was holding Rick’s cock negligently, just holding it, not stroking.   He had held Rick like that while fucking him, too, _evasively._  Now, Shane’s head was pillowed on Rick’s chest.   He had one hand on Rick’s cock, one finger in his ass, and was pushing the come in and out of Rick’s body almost sleepily.  Rick was already so loose, sloppy, his cock bobbed and twitched, strained upward, purple with need.  Shane said it with his voice muffled: chewing on Rick’s nipples until he sobbed, clenched, and came - always untouched - his body flushing a riotous red. “I’ll pierce them through and through.” Shane had teased.  There was a meanness to it, Rick thought, how he talked about those girls, how more limbs equalled a better time but Rick couldn’t land a single stroke on his own cock, he couldn’t get Shane’s mouth anywhere below his navel. Shane’s hair was a dark mess when he grinned upward at Rick.  “You like it….your tits are more sensitive than any chick.”  And in demonstration he had flicked one, then scratched the other with the bed of his nail.  Rick juddered and shook, still chasing the last of his orgasm. He was both recoiling and coming, he didn’t think his body could be set to further odds.  _I have three questions for you:  Do you care about those girls?  Is sex always like this, between us? Why?  Why? And **why?**_

Unvoiced, Rick had come until he was slack with it. Panting, he had pushed Shane’s head away, slick with sweat, and felt the pang of otherness between his legs when he tried to sit up.  He was _gaping._   “Ow. Fuck.”

“Too big?”  Shane grinned.  “I think you were tighter than Veronica.  Maybe not any more, though.”

“Ass.”

“Dick,” Shane corrected.  “And a swinging one.”

Rick felt weird, wired wrong, he _was_ weird, sore, tired, and there was come leaking out of his ass. “Why do you act like this?” he had asked, sharply.

Shane’s expression faltered.  “We’re fuck buddies,” he answered, uncertainly.   “Hey, hey, you never ask for –“

“Fuck a doll next time.  I’m done.”

Shane reeled as if slapped, his mouth fell open, his eyes widened, and then, waspish, he said:  “Dude, you were lying so still I thought I was!”

They’re fourteen years old the first time they have an honest-to-god knock your teeth out fight.  They’d known each other since the cradle, it was the first time they’re not RickandShane anymore, but separate bodies and singular planets - a chasm so wide it could have been the distance between the celestials and earth.

 

 

***

 

 

“No!” Daryl says, on the third argument.

“You want to go it alone!?” Shane yells, incredulously.

“Better on me own!”

“Get in the damn car!” Rick interrupts.  The Uzi is hot, used up.  They have maybe five, eight minutes on their side, and he’s not wasting them in the middle of the street bickering. Daryl swings around, his mouth set into a hard, mulish line. 

“I didn’t swear no pact when you let me out!”

“You got somewheres you need to be right now, because those walkers are comin’!” Rick says. 

Out of the side streets, lumbering through shop windows, they’re staggering out of broken doors and heaving towards them. What Rick lacks in volume he makes up for in intensity because his words cut through to Daryl, where all of Shane’s hollering had failed.  Daryl shifts on his feet, there are woods to the left and part of Daryl’s attention is fixed on the tree-line, like he could take his crossbow and melt into the wilderness.  “Because if you do have someplace to be,” Rick adds, “I’ll guarantee we’ll see you there.  I promise.”

“Yeah,” Daryl jerks his gaze away.  “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“Stick with us,” Rick urges.  It’s a sell, he knows it is, Daryl was locked in because the Sheriff who wore the same uniform as Rick refused to believe in reality. Because he thought those people could be rescued; because he thought Daryl was a killer – maybe there was more to it, maybe Daryl ended someone who was cherished, beloved, maybe there was a grudge at stake – but when he realized his mistake the same Sheriff abandoned Daryl with a sick man, no food, and walkers all around.  “We’ve supplies,” Rick says.  “And what we have is yours - people don’t get far on their own these days.”

“Rick!” Shane calls out, sharply.  He’s set up behind the wheel, engine coughing and spluttering to life.  “Leave him if he wants, but let’s go, man!”

“How long do you think you can outrun them on an empty belly and a concussion?  You don’t strike me as a fool…don’t mistake the forest for the tree.”

“Ain’t that backwards?”

“Still applicable.  I’m not him - the guy who left you there – don’t think I am because of this.” Rick jerks the lapel of his uniform. Daryl curses; his shoulder strikes Rick’s own as he passes by, hard, knocking Rick’s orbit of focus askew, tilting him toward the right and to the nearest walker.  He climbs into the back seat of the car though, crossbow jammed between his knees.  “Maybe you.  Dunno about Cliché.”

Rick fires the colt.  He sees enough to know it’s a clean head-shot, that the walker falls, then clambers into the front seat beside Shane.  “Go.  Go.”

 

***

 

When Rick was fifteen he met Lori Bishop.  Silly in love, Rick had scribbled her a note: “Can I be your knight?” and watched her fall out of the chair, hiccupping with laughter.  Affronted, he wasn’t sure how to explain it was a joke – just a joke, please, please, believe me - when Lori smiled at him, and the sting of her laughter was erased in seconds.  Lori’s eyes were alight with interest.  She had said, mock earnestly: “Do you play?” 

Rick might have mixed up his baseball references but he mastered a game of chess in four moves flat.

He never talked about Lori.  Not with anyone, he never shared a single sexual anecdote, greedily, Rick had kept Lori to himself, the colour of her skin, how the sweat gathered on her brow, between her breasts, how Lori was mercurial and unset. She would ride him, or say harder, how sometimes she would curl close and kiss, wet and open mouthed, when cuddling was the only agenda of the day. They would lie out in the sun, the sky so bright above, in languid heat.  There was no routine.  She explored him, Lori touched him in a thousand different ways, with fingers, tongue and toys, with her mind, inside and out Lori invited Rick in, deeper, and he’d tremble and shake, he’d come apart, enveloped by her grace.

Their relationship lasted until school ended, then like a passing comet she shot onward, studying biology at Harvard, travelling her separate way. 

Shane said:  “I’m sorry, man.  It was stupid and I was….I was working things out in me own head.”

“You _used_ me for that,” Rick said, evenly.  By now he’d settled into his own skin, he knew his temperament, those interconnecting wires, the spark of interest and lust. “Why?”

“Why?  You’re my best friend…who else, right?” Shane had said, and his smile had gone watery. “I was wrong…I didn’t mean to mess with you.  Truth is, I’ve missed you something fierce.  It wasn’t…it wasn’t like how I said it was.”

Rick didn’t reply, he waited until the hope left Shane’s eyes, until he was strung out and hovering on an outcome, then relented. “Fuck buddies,” Rick had repeated, when Shane moved to turn away, and shook his head.  “Only you, man.”

 

 

***

 

“Atlanta,” Daryl says.  “Merle, me brother, he’s a marine.  He sent a message before all this went down.”

Merle, Shane mouths.  He rolls his eyes so hard it’s a wonder their vehicle doesn’t fly off the road.  He might have been soundless but Daryl sees the action in the rear-view mirror and cuffs Shane over the head smartly.  “Something you wanna say, Cliché?”

Shane turns around far enough to jab a finger toward the back seat.  “I don’t mind telling you, check the mirror before you use that nick-name again, and two, the threat _I_ used in the prison cell wasn’t idle.  _Merle._   What kind of hillbilly, inbred name is that?”

He’s stuck in a car with his parents, Rick thinks, dismayed.

He lurches over the backseat and slaps a palm against Daryl’s chest before the man can react and get them all killed by doing something stupid, like attacking Shane Walsh:  “Is he a deserter, your brother?”

“Are _you_?” Daryl snaps.

“Point,” Rick acknowledges – he’s going to need to change clothing soon – take the uniform off once and for all, put it aside. Daryl mutters, warm against Rick’s palm, and settles.  He jams his knees into the driver’s seat viciously and roots around for an energy bar. Up front, Shane’s fingers beat a rapid tattoo against the steering wheel, irritation bleeding of him in waves. Rick’s hard-pressed to hide his smile. “We saw a convoy this morning, en route to Fort Benning, we think.”

“Regiment?”

“Don’t know.”  Carefully, Rick asks:  “What’s your brother like _?” Is he useful?  Is he like you?  Is he calmer?  More rational?  Will there be more people with him?_

Daryl’s earnestness is criminal.  “He’s all smiles and sunshine, officer.”

It’s a loaded silence when Shane says: “Oh, he’s a cracker.”

“You wanted company,” Rick reminds.

 

***

 

The first time Shane went down, Rick directed him with a palm cupped under his chin, with soft words, with his legs spread wide and with the Sunday Football playing in the background.  It was twilight, soft edged – it’s the trickster light, Lori might say. “You’re so good,” Rick encouraged, and nudged his hips upward, let his dick slide a little further in. “You’re so good like that.” If he dropped his hand a little further - stroked along Shane’s throat - Rick could feel himself in outline, cramming Shane’s mouth full.  His dick would flutter and swell with every gasp, with every small wheeze that escaped. Shane’s eyelashes were damp with unshed tears, Rick didn’t move much, he made it last for the entire game. “You’re so beautiful like that.”

 

***

 

The fourth argument is a comedy of errors. 

They drive for an hour before they hit a traffic snarl, cars banked up and glinting in the sun.  They loop onto Highway 21 then reverse course at speed when a herd of walkers stumble into view.  They run around in circles trying to find a clear path to Atlanta then call it quits and camp on the edge of the road.  Wash, rinse, repeat for the next two days straight. 

Daryl doesn’t sleep in the car, he takes his crossbow and a bedroll and he heads off, someplace nearby.  Rick’s found him holed up in rocky outcrops; found him dangling from a forked tree-branch like a puma, he’s seen him wander off into the woods and spent the night awake, wondering if it was the last they’d see of him. Daryl always came back, normally with a skinned animal hanging from his line: “Breakfast,” he’d mutter.

“Man, there’s _oats_ ,” Shane would state.  “And water. I ain’t eating your road-kill.”

Not yet, anyway, Rick would think darkly, but maybe soon… Their supplies wouldn’t last forever.  “What is it?”

“Woodchuck.”

Shoring himself up, Rick nodded:  “I’ll try.”  He could feel Shane at his spine.  Shane didn’t say anything, mouth twisted in dislike, but he recognised an overture when presented with one as easily as Rick did.

Daryl had looked at Shane then cut the critter into thirds. “Get a taste for it, boys.”

“Lord, pray, not if I can help it.”

Point was, Daryl slept apart from them and had done so since they’d met.  Shane and Rick stayed close, convenience, habit, they already knew each other inside and out. “The car’s safe,” Shane had reasoned.  “Quick getaway if needed and those doors lock, man, there ain’t no getting in.” Those seats folded back, too, and some nights they’d make out like teenagers, hands down each other’s shorts, biting collarbones, rubbing off slow.  It was sweaty in their patrol car, the humidity wouldn’t quit at night and so clothes were discarded, sex was had energetically, a balm to distraction, and then promptly, they’d fall asleep.

They woke up butt naked, with Daryl’s hands slapping against the window, with his holler turning frantic:  “Wake up!  Let me in.”

Walkers were everywhere, faces grey, limbs reaching, they were coming out of the woods from all directions.  Daryl fired off another shot before Rick unlocked the door, grabbed him by the vest, and hauled Daryl straight into Shane’s lap. Rick didn’t waste time dressing or explaining, he scooted over to the driver’s side and kicked the engine into go.  He took out two walkers, blood splashing against the grille and the patrol wheels bumping over body bits. Later, when Rick forced himself to look in the mirror, _shell-shocked_ was the best word he could ascribe. 

“Merle ain’t gonna stand for this....”  Daryl said, faintly.

Later, after he scrambled out of Shane’s lap, when they found a place to stop and dress, after he had hollered belligerently: “You’re faggots?! I’m with pansy-assed queens?” Rick would remember that line, Daryl’s first concern wasn’t _what_ they were doing but how his brother, Merle, would react. He could be as crude and insulting as any redneck hick, he might have a conniption right on this spot with the amount of slurs he flung, but Daryl’s first reaction lingered in Rick’s mind.

“Every other Friday.  I’m an equal opportunist on most nights though, just as fond of girls if the personality’s right, is that a problem for you?” Rick tilted his head.

Daryl had floundered, momentarily stumped.  “You wanna keep it decent from here on out! That’s my seat you were on, by the way, I ain’t forgetting.”

Rick’s mouth had twitched.

“Shoot,” Shane exclaimed.  “I think he’s jealous he wasn’t invited.”

Which led to another twenty minutes of bitching. Shane always pushed too far, didn’t have a proper read on people, and Rick knew it the second the words left Shane’s mouth.  Daryl’s expression went _flat._ Meanness, Rick knows, is a tool, it can be effective as a bright smile - it gilds all manner of sins. “Shuddup,” Daryl sneered.

“Or what?”

Rick stepped between them, one hand upraised, his body a bridge between opposite forces, Daryl slapped his hand away.

" _Don’t touch me. Don’t you **ever** touch me.”_

The face on Rick’s watch said it was three in the morning, they were standing in the ghostly beam of the car headlights simmering toward a full blown fight when the air-force streaked by overhead, and laid waste to the city of Atlanta.

 

***

 

“It’s like he never grew up,” Shane said, exasperated.

“He’s growing up now,” Rick replied, tiredly.

 

***

 

When the bombs fell they froze in tableau, shock clear on their faces, before Daryl spun.  Shane tackled him before he could reach the car, before he could steal their vehicle and leave, and like the prison, the fight had been eerily fierce, silent. “Ssh,” Shane said, eventually. “Sssh now.  We ain’t going.  There’s no point in going there.”

“He ain’t dead!  Nobody can kill Merle but Merle.  Get off of me!”

Rick had squatted beside him, sitting low on his haunches. “Maybe.  But that means Merle left the city long since, deserted his post, and he’s out here somewhere with us.  We’ll help you look, we will, but you gotta be rational about it, yeah?  Can you do that? Be quiet?”

Over the roar of the explosion he doesn’t think any walkers could hear them nearby, but his nerves are jingling.  Shane had Daryl on his belly, both hands twisted behind his back.  His shirt had ridden up in the fight, his face was turned toward the unholy glow of Atlanta; he was pale as a ghost.  “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Good.”  There were lash marks all over his spine.

Shane’s thumb stroked across Daryl’s wrist, once, before he released him.

 

***

 

“You ever wonder what would have happened if it were you, who copped that bullet, instead of Leon?  Stupid punk.”

Rick was shot in the vest after stopping a high-speed pursuit, and when the third assailant revealed himself, stumbling out of the wreckage, Leon had drawn his eye, young, incompetent Leon.  He had been in the hospital, lying in a coma when the military opened fire on it, and Rick lost all faith in the uppity-ups, because that was his people inside the building.  “I’d be dead, I suppose.”  He looks over and grins at Shane quickly.  “You’d be in the hills long since, if were me in the coma.” They went into the horror show, weapons drawn, with blood streaked across the corridors and a staff door barricaded with the words Don’t open, Dead Inside.  They found Leon’s room, the door flung wide open, the life support was off, and three walkers were making a meal of his corpse.

“Yep, I’d be eating frog legs,” Shane agrees, then more soberly, he adds.  “Don’t joke, man, not about that.  I wouldn’t leave you.”

Rick looks out the window, watching the scenery flash by.

“Hey, hey!” Daryl says urgently.  “Stop the car!”

“What?  What is it?”

But he’s already falling out the door before the vehicle comes to a complete halt, crossbow over his shoulder, his pace set to a steady jog. Daryl stops at a black piece of machinery - two wheels, handles high - and raps his knuckles against the gas tank.  The look on his face is the closest thing to pleasure Rick has seen, he grins at them, sharply, then swings a leg over the bike and hot wires it like a pro.   When the roar subsides, he walks the bike over to them, still seated, and crows.  “You two have sex on it and there will be words, hear?”

“Not even on the handle-bars?”  Shane deadpans.

Rick laughs once, unexpectedly, a grin pulling at his mouth. “Keep close, yeah.”

“Yeah,” Daryl agrees, he looks at Rick, tension gone, his body easy and says:  “Sure thing, officer.”

Three, three works for them, it’s better with more, Shane had whispered in the distant past, more limbs, more fire-power, more spark – Rick’s nerves are jangling with sensation, he’s hot-wired, edging to go.  “You could ask him,” Shane intones, when they return to the car.  His eyes are on the road; but his attention is one hundred per cent on Rick.  Ahead, Daryl weaves the bike left to right, hypnotic as a snake, warming the tyres.

“Not yet.” 

Rick watches the empty fields.  The world is muted, the moon shines under a blue sky, ethereal, only a quarter of it visible.   The bike purrs in the distance while a walker stumbles through the fields in a suit and tie, the trajectory of his journey unknown.

He feels like out of the entire world, there are only three of them left.

 

***

 

“Take your shirt off,” Shane would whisper. “Touch yourself. Lower.  Lower.”

Rick obeys each instruction, eyes shut, relaxed and falling into it deeper with every order.  He makes the decisions out there; he carries the weight of those choices without flinching, but in the confines of the car he’s quiet, malleable. “You still so sensitive?” Shane wonders, breath hot against Rick’s chest.  Rick cups his balls and testicles, spreads his legs wide as he can in the confines of the car - filthy as a flesh magazine.  “Yeah, I bet you are.”  Shane adds his own hand to Rick’s, the added squeeze on his cock almost too much, and jerks him.  His teeth are worrying at Rick’s nipple when he mutters:  “Think we’re being watched.” Rick comes, _fast,_ messing himself, embarrassing as a teenager.  “Yeah I thought so,” Shane croons.  When Rick opens his eyes his vision is blurred and he can’t tell if Shane lied or not; if Daryl had seen anything then he’s long since gone.  “Hitch a leg up, will you?” Shane demands.  “And I don’t recall saying you could come this soon.”

Rick needs this release, a pressure valve for what occurs outside of the patrol car, he needs Shane to carry some of the load, and Rick’s accustomed to the sting of brutal pleasure.  He hitches a leg up, he opens himself with his own fingers, knuckle deep.  He hisses when Shane rakes nails across the fleshy part of his thigh; he bucks his hips up until Shane is seated deep inside.  He’s open, open in this world – offering himself - he’s gaping so wide.

 

***

 

It takes three towns, endless amount of walker kills, house raids that are bloody nightmare traps and one near death experience until Daryl comes to him.  He’s bleeding copiously from a case of not-so friendly-fire, he folds into Rick like he’s seeking shelter, like he’d nestle into Rick’s ribcage and shake, rattle with a venom-warning.  “I’ve got you,” Rick reassures.  “Easy now.” He’s gentle, Rick’s gentle in all the ways Shane is rough, and he traces a finger over the coiled patterns on Daryl’s skin and repeats.  “Easy now, here.” 

He doesn’t do anything but sleep that first night. Don’t touch me, Daryl had hollered, eyes glinting yellow and mean.  Except he touches Rick now, from toes to sternum he’s a mellow line.

His brother and a stranger are the only people occupying Rick’s world, he holds them both, bridging the differences between them, determined to keep them close.

 

***

 

They swing left through three different county’s and meet up with a girl, short bob, dark hair, who stands clear in the centre of the road with a .38 revolver drawn.  They slow down and come to a complete stop.  “Police,” she says.  “I’m Tara.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Daryl hollers, and throws his hands up in the air.

“He had a bad encounter with a member,” Rick explains. “That your weapon?”

“Uh-huh.”

“See that strikes me as odd,” Shane throws in, from the side. “Most departments updated to automatics years ago.”

“You’re not a cop,” Rick states, flatly. 

Out of uniform, no member worth their salt admitted to their chosen career– not because they were ashamed – but because everyone had an opinion about the police force and were keen to share it, and that shit got damn tiring after a bit.  “Public servant,” Rick would deflect when asked by strangers, and go about buying his bread undisturbed.

“The gun was my dad’s,” Tara admits, and her expression falters. “I was….in training…when it happened.”

“We reminiscing or we leaving?” Daryl hollers.  His bike a low, impatient, grumble.

Tara looks between Shane and Rick and asks eagerly. “You have a camp nearby?”

“We have a rainbow wagon,” Daryl bites out.

“Oh!  Oh cool!” she says, brightly.

He blinks, then blinks again.  “You’re kidding me.”

 

***

 

Tara chooses Daryl’s bike over the squad car. Clinging to the hand-hold she’s a bright smile and dark hair, whipping in the wind.

 

They like her.  They like Tara instantly.

 

***

 

They find others, slowly, eventually they start to grow, more is better, more is safe. 

Daryl comes to him, edging out of the sides at first, materializing from the dark, then full frontal, under the broad strokes of daylight. Rick can doze with Daryl’s head pillowed on his belly, with one hand tangled in his hair, with his fingers scritching Daryl’s scalp, and listen to the other man writhe and hiss. Shane appears most days, he’ll sit upside down to Rick, so they’re head to head, feet in opposite directions and talk, spilling yarns, his laughter low, and other days he’ll lope off to keep watch.  Rick doesn’t do anything more, never pushes further, until exasperated, Daryl says one day: “Touch me.”

 

***

 

“There’s more.”   More limbs, more bodies, Shane is a part of him, entwined so tight they’re a package unit.  More than that, Rick won’t leave him apart, couldn’t bear the thought of a chasm so deep.

“I know,” Daryl rasps.  “I want him.  I want you.”

He makes a bridge of his body. 

Daryl’s hand on his cock is uninformed, like Shane all of those years ago he’s a little too rough, but he adapts to motion, he reads Rick’s body language like it’s Braille and spits in his palm, soothes his touch to gentleness.  Shane buffets him from behind, torso to chest, holding Rick’s weight, and all three stand on their feet.  “Lick him,” Shane whispers, and Rick shudders at a hot tongue on his chest, at the hand working between his legs, at the finger hooking him from behind.  Shane strokes his prostate at the same time Daryl bites him hard.  And he huffs out a noise, a _huh-huh-huh_ that Rick would be ashamed to admit to. 

“He likes that.” Shane smirks.

Daryl’s hand blurs faster, adding a vicious twist on his cock-head and Rick shatters between them, splattering his own stomach. Sloppily, he leans forward, kissing Daryl on the mouth, tongue sliding in, backing him up until Daryl’s spine hits the post of the warehouse they’re gathered in.  Rick goes to his knees at Shane’s behest, and when he glances up through eyelashes that are lowered, he can see the wild, shocked, look in Daryl’s eyes.  It’s the work of a second to unbuckle Daryl’s pants; to hobble him at the knee and suck his cock down, greedily, to employ every trick Rick’s learnt in twenty-six years.

“J-jesus—“ Daryl stutters.  “Wha—“  He sounds brokenly young.

Rick knows those hands, knows how those fingers can breach him open, he knows Shane’s weight and girth, he knows how much it hurts when he pushes inside.  Rick relaxes his jaw and let’s Shane’s first shallow thrust lodge Daryl’s dick halfway down his throat.

Daryl doubles over, hands gentle on Rick’s skull, and Shane withdraws with his hands clenched tight on Rick’s hip, in perpetual motion, Rick recedes too, like a tide drawing away.  The tip of Daryl’s cock is kissing his lips, the tip of Shane’s cock is breaching his ass.  Shane thrusts, Rick swallows, and Daryl’s pupils blow wide, dark as a starless night.

 

 

***

 

More is intense, sometimes frightening, it can be nameless and inexplicable and entirely them.  They sleep tangled together, at ease.


End file.
